Tuesday 23 April 2019

April 24, 2019 10:51 AM

Morning Briefing: Easter is over, back to Brexit

Easter is over: back to Brexit

Welcome back to the People’s Vote Morning Briefing after the Easter break. We have all been shocked by the events in Sri Lanka and share our support and sympathy for the victims, families and everyone affected.

After a brief period of respite on all sides, Brexit is back in the headlines and our mission to ensure a People’s Vote becomes more urgent.

Cross-party talks are set to restart today between the Government and Labour, with Labour coming under internal pressure to come out for a People's Vote and Tory MPs gearing up to try and remove their leader again.

In the Brexit talks, a government team including David Lidington, May’s de facto deputy, and the Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, is to meet Barclay’s Labour shadow, Keir Starmer, the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, and others at the Cabinet Office.

Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson – who admitted he is ‘a bit of a latecomer to this policy’ - has now embraced the need for a second referendum and urged his Labour colleagues to get behind a People’s Vote.

He wrote in the Observer: ‘Now we know a bit more about what Brexit means, the very least that Leavers and Remainers deserve is a final say – a confirmatory referendum – on any deal.’

His comments come as a ComRes poll shows that latest EU referendum voting intention stands at 58% for Remain (+4%) and 42% Leave (-4%), the biggest Remain lead in three years.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been pressing for a Customs Union in discussions with Theresa May, but there came a warning yesterday that cities such as London, Cardiff, Brighton and Edinburgh would be hard hit by a Brexit deal that ignores the powerful services sector.

Failure to preserve frictionless access to the European Union for leading service industries would risk a sharp fall in trade, risking £78 billion of British exports and exposing a threat to jobs across dozens of urban areas, the economic think tank Centre for Cities warned.

The report, covered in The Times (£) considered a future where the 79% of the UK’s economic output covered by the service sector is left out of a customs deal with the EU.

People’s Vote supporter and Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, Stephen Doughty, said Labour negotiators considering a Brexit deal based on a Customs Union model should be aware that it would still leave important sectors of the economy exposed and vulnerable.

Stephen Doughty said: “With so much focus on the Northern Irish border and the physical movement of goods there is a real danger that we will take our eye off the need to ensure that services are fully covered by any Brexit deal.

“The service sector provides 85% of UK employment and it’s activity is woven into European regulations and standards at every conceivable level. To tear all of that up and replace it with the sticking plaster of a hastily cobbled together Customs Union would be to take a massive risk with millions of people’s jobs and livelihoods.’

Tory in-fighting and Trump to visit

The Conservative Party emerged from the Easter holiday with more in-fighting and threats to Theresa May’s leadership. The Telegraph reports that Tory backbenchers will demand that she names the date for her departure or face being ousted in June.

The Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn claims that Mrs May has ‘reluctantly' asked officials to look again at renegotiating alternative arrangements with the EU after ‘heavy pressure from Tory Brexiteers’.

The Standard reports that more than 70 local Conservative Party chiefs have signed a petition calling for a Tory leadership election.

And just to add more fuel to the fire of political chaos and demonstrations, the BBC’s Jon Sopel claimed on Twitter that President Donald Trump is planning to announce a state visit to the UK in June.

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Quote of the Day

“The developments with Brexit prove that this path, the nationalistic path, is not a path that offers an easy way for a breakthrough in solving real problems.”

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